“Donna geniale e di spirito”: Laura Veccia Vaglieri and her Apologia dell’Islamismo (1925)

This brief chapter analyzes Laura Veccia Vaglieri's defense of Islam, written in 1925. Albeit not a Muslim herself, this Italian Arabist wrote about Islam in a very positive way, combining the thought of modernists such as Muhammad `Abduh and Syed Ameer Ali with her conviction that a true, just, and progressive Islam could be recovered by returning to its Arabian core and to its inherently flexible character. It gives us a snapshot of the modernist trend in Islamic thought during the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire. A century after its publication, Vaccia Vaglieri's work is still read and printed in many languages.